Commonly, the blades of ice skates are sharpened or touched up using a rotating grinding wheel of a grinding machine. The grinding machine takes a sizeable cut out of the blade each time it is used to sharpen the blade which reduces the life of the blade. Also, the cost of using the grinding machine limits the number of times a skater can affordably sharpen his or her skates. Bringing skates to the grind shop is time consuming and often impractical to repair game or performance time blade damage.
Hand held devices having stones of abrasive material are used to sharpen and touch up the bottom edges of ice skate blades as an alternative to the grinding machine. Each stone has a uniform diameter which provides a longitudinal concave groove along the bottom of the blade. It is desirable to have a device wherein the blade can be shaped to a desired concave along the bottom the ice skate blade. This requires a separate tool having a stone of a different diameter. A number of different tools are used to provide this feature. An example of an ice skate blade edge resurfacer is shown by B. J. Anderson in U.S. Pat. No. 5,431,597. This tool has a one-piece body accommodating a cylindrical stone rotatably confined within a cylindrical passage in the body. The stone can be rotated to change the position of the surface in alignment with a slot that accommodates the ice skate blade. The device is moved longitudinally in opposite directions along the blade to sharpen the lower edge of the blade and provide a longitudinal concave groove in the blade.